What happens to rockers who don’t die young?

What do the following individuals have in common: a political activist from Suffolk; a chartered psychologist from Oxfordshire, who enjoys playing golf at weekends; a funeral celebrant from Liverpool; the Birmingham-based chairperson of the Ladder Association Training Committee (‘When it’s right to use a ladder, use the ladder, and get trained to use it safely’); a pop star from LA? The answer is that all of them were pop stars, with the obvious exception of the pop star from LA who still is one. But even Robbie Williams used to be bigger.

In Exit Stage Left Nick Duerden sketches the afterlives of two dozen former or current musicians – ‘afterlife’ here signifying whatever befell them subsequent to the moment of their greatest triumph or notoriety, be it a string of sold-out dates at Knebworth (Robbie) or a drunken appearance on a late-night Channel 4 talk show (Wayne Hussey from the Leeds goth band the Mission).

Some of his interviewees, such as the singer and latterly teacher Natalie Merchant, are out of the game: ‘I look at these people, people like Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney, and I think to myself: If I were you, I’d just go home and enjoy my garden and my grand-children.’ Others will never say die. ‘Oh, I’d love to have another number one record before I’m 80,’ says an ebullient Leo Sayer: ‘That’s what drives me, and I’m always trying to prove myself. Hey, if Bob Dylan can do it, then why not me?’ As Duerden notes drily: ‘There may be any number of reasonable explanations as to why not, but Sayer’s drive can hardly be faulted.’

One problem for musicians who achieve celebrity, however fleetingly, when young is that they can become trapped in adolescence – not just theirs, but everyone else’s.